Of Mice and Mommies

The potty training is, in my mind, complete. The doodle has been very good pretty much since the 4th day of the whole training undertaking about making sure to let us know when he has to go. There isn't always a ton of advance notice, but it's been, with one exception, enough time to make it all the way to the potty, get the pants taken care of, and so forth. So I've been getting us back into our usual routine of going out and about to do this and that and, honestly, just to get out of the house a few days a week - we both need the change of scene periodically.

When we first started the whole process we began with a big "diapers into the trash bag" party that included the disassembly of the diaper bag and the switch to a different backpack for the car bag (cause it always pays to be prepared and I'm not silly enough to think that there won't be any issues while we're out and about.) At the same time, it was "move the winter clothes out to storage and spring/summer clothes into the dresser" time. So as I was filling the car bag I set aside a pair of khakis that have a hole in the knee and are a bit short but otherwise still fine to be his "car pants" since I didn't want to sacrifice new summer clothes to sit in the bag and languish in the car (hopefully) never getting used.

It was also starting to be spring-like around here, so, since the kiddo still insists on both his crocheted blanked and his Elmo comforter during nap time, I started sliding his pants off and just letting him nap in a shirt and underpants, and I set his pants for the day on top of the dresser to redress him after nap time.

So last Thursday I had to run out to the doctor before the kiddo had gotten up from his nap, so I told Tim to put him in the brown pants I had set out when he got up and went on my way. When I came home, I saw the kiddo running around in his torn and short but mostly ok khaki pants that were sitting next to the dark brown pants he had been wearing earlier in the day. Now to me, I hear brown pants and see two options that are both technically brown, I'm not going to choose the khakis. But whatever, he had pants on. Of course, then they went outside and the pants got dirty so I had to wash them before they could go in the car bag and so the car bag sat on the chair by the garage door to go out when it was put together.

Fast forward to today when I went out to the store to get groceries for me, my mom, and a banquet that she's putting together tomorrow night for Wycliffe Bible Translators. The cart was about 3/4 full when I was informed that there was a need for the potty. Of course, the potty is at the front of the store and we were almost at the back wall, so we scooted as fast as we could and all was good, and we were soon back on our way to finish with the shopping. After we paid we decided to get a bite to eat from the deli before heading up to my mom's and her church to drop off her groceries and the banquet food respectively. We made it through the line and got one bite in before another notice that the potty was needed came out. And before I could even really register the request he was dripping.

Ok, fine, no problem, that's what the car bag is for. So we scooted out to the car and ...no car bag. Because it's sitting on the chair by the garage door waiting for the khakis that are sitting on top of his dresser to make it into them.

At this point I weighed my options. I could go home and get the car bag and new clothes and then head to my mom's. I could hit Target on my way to the highway and mom's. Or I could just put his car blanket on his carseat and take off the wet clothes and go. And it was that last one I opted for.

So my bottomless little boy ran around my mom's church while I unloaded groceries into their kitchen. It didn't faze him in the slightest. My mom thought it was a mixture of adorable and hilarious. I was just glad that no one else was around.

We made it home with no more incidents, but I put the car bag in the backseat as soon as we got home and it's not coming back in.